FAQs WhatsApp Plans
What is WhatsApp API? How can I get one?
The WhatsApp Business API is designed to enhance customer engagement by providing special features for medium and large businesses worldwide. It allows businesses to securely and reliably interact with customers over WhatsApp. Integration with your existing business software is seamless, similar to other APIs, making it easy to implement.
To apply for a WhatsApp Business API account, you need to have a business phone number linked to the account. This number must be capable of receiving calls or SMS for OTP verification. It's important to note that you cannot use a number already associated with another account.
WhatsApp does not directly manage business accounts. Instead, it delegates the distribution of the WhatsApp Business API to approved partners known as WhatsApp Business Solution Providers. You can apply for a WhatsApp Business API through these partners.
What is a WhatsApp Conversation? Why is Engati charging this over and above your platform subscription fee?
WhatsApp Conversations are 24-hour message threads between you and your customers. All conversations are measured in 24-hour increments, or "sessions", where you can send unlimited messages. The Conversations are further subdivided into four categories (“Conversations”):
- Marketing: Marketing conversations include promotions or offers, informational updates, or invitations for customers to respond or take action.
- Utility: Utility conversations facilitate a specific, agreed-upon request or transaction, or update a customer about an ongoing transaction. These may include transaction confirmations, transaction updates, and/or post-purchase notifications.
- Authentication: Authentication conversations enable you to authenticate users with one-time passcodes, potentially at multiple steps in the login process (e.g., account verification, account recovery, integrity challenges).
- Service: All user-initiated conversations will be categorized as service conversations, to help resolve customer inquiries.
WhatsApp Conversation pricing is based on the Meta policies including specified region and conversation categories. Each WhatsApp Business Account gets 1,000 free service conversations each month across all of its business phone numbers. Marketing, Utility and Authentication conversations are not part of the free tier. The conversation categories will be determined by WhatsApp as per its categorisation guidelines.
What is WhatsApp Broadcast?
WhatsApp Broadcast is a feature that allows businesses to send unlimited messages (depending on your messaging tier) to their contact lists at once. Using this feature, one can share messages, multimedia, attachments, locations, links and more with their contacts without letting the recipients see or interact with each other. These messages can be customized and customers will receive them without needing to save your number.
How will WhatsApp Marketing help me grow my business?
- Stronger relationships with customers
- Higher conversion rates
- High engagement rate
- Lower Customer Acquisition Cost
- Privacy and security
- Allows you to showcase your brand personality
Do you help with Leads/Databases?
No, we cannot help you with leads or databases. However, we can help capture users (names and numbers) who have interacted with the WhatsApp Broadcast Messages in Google Sheets or push the data into a CRM system.
Will my number get blocked if I send bulk messages on WhatsApp?
Meta recommends businesses to provide an opt-out option to their users to avoid spamming them and eventually, getting the number blocked. Using unofficial tools or sending too many messages at once to people who have not opted into your WhatsApp Broadcasting, might get you reported or banned. WhatsApp is traditionally meant for retargeting your existing audience.
Here are some do's and don'ts you should follow: Best Practices for WhatsApp Broadcast.
How many Channels do you support?
The WhatsApp Accelerator plan includes only WhatsApp. We do support other channels, however, that involve additional charges.
How can I get a green tick for my WhatsApp Business Number?
To qualify for a WhatsApp green tick for your business number, follow these steps:
- Ensure you have WhatsApp API and verified Facebook Business Manager (FBM).
- Have a verified Facebook Business Manager account.
- Enable 2-step verification for added security.
- Note that WhatsApp only verifies business accounts, not individual or personal ones.
- Aim for Tier 2 or higher messaging level.
- Ideally, your brand should have some level of recognition, such as news coverage.
To initiate the verification process:
- Access settings and select "Contact support."
- Submit a query titled "WABiz: Request official business account status."
- Provide the necessary documents and information to support your application (8 to 10 lines as to why your business requires the green tick).
Your API provider, already linked to your Facebook Business Manager, can assist in the verification process. Once approved, you'll be notified automatically when your business account receives the WhatsApp green tick.
Whose name and number will appear for the WhatsApp messages sent to my contact?
What is a message limit?
The WhatsApp Business Number configured on the platform, with your brand name, logo and a verified green tick will appear on the messages sent to your contacts.
As per Meta guidelines, business phone numbers lacking a connected status and an approved display name are restricted to initiating 250 business conversations within a rolling 24-hour period. This limitation applies to all phone numbers associated with unverified businesses, as display name approval is contingent upon business verification.
Business phone numbers with a connected status and approved display name can initiate conversations with the following number of unique customers in a rolling 24-hour period:
- 1K unique customer
- 10K unique customers
- 100K unique customers
- An unlimited number of unique customers
These limits are based on factors such as phone number status, quality rating, and frequency of initiating conversations. Even if you meet the criteria, if your business phone number has a low-quality rating, you may remain limited to 250 business-initiated conversations until the rating improves.
How to send WhatsApp broadcasts?
There are two ways to create a WhatsApp broadcast list:
A:
- Open WhatsApp > and click on the 3 dots "More options" icon on the upper right corner of the screen (besides the search icon).
- Search, Click or Select all the contacts you want to add.
- Tap the round "Right/Check Mark" icon at the lower right corner.
- Start broadcasting or sending messages.
B:
- Open WhatsApp > and click on the new chat button/icon at the lower right corner.
- Click or select all the contacts you want to add.
- Two options will appear on top of the screen > select NEW BROADCAST.
You can add the list of users you want to target and start broadcasting messages for your marketing and sales campaigns.
How to get Template messages approved?
Creating your WhatsApp message templates requires approval from WhatsApp before being deployed to your entire customer base and potential leads. This can be done directly through the 360Dialog portal where the message template is created.
According to Meta’s official site, the approval decision can take up to 24 hours, although the process is reported to be complete within minutes.
Certain policies apply universally to all WhatsApp Business Products. For further details, please refer to the full document: WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy
Do we get a dashboard for Analytics?
Yes, you can view basic broadcast analytics such as sent, delivered and read in broadcast history. Once you have initiated a conversation, view you can view live chat analytics on inbound requests, resolution of requests, agent performance, user feedback & more.
There is a also an advanced WhatsApp Analytics Dashboard. It allows you to track information such as account usage, status, and other information which helps you in improving your productivity.
It can be enabled/disabled via entitlement. However, this is currently only available for WhatsApp Base and Growth plans. It can be accessed through the Overview tab.
Can I build customised workflows?
Yes, you can create basic workflows. For advanced configurations, you will have to upgrade to a higher plan.
How many languages do you support?
We support over 65+ languages for our Whatsapp Brodcast. For the Live Chat service, customer needs to connect their Google translation account for auto translation.
Can I reply from my normal WhatsApp?
WhatsApp Business has certain restrictions. If the message is sent from a business number, the response to your customer queries must also be from a business number. When switching to WhatsApp API, the regular WhatsApp app will no longer respond to messages. Using the Team Inbox via the Engati app or portal, you can access all your messages in one place and respond from there.
Is this like ChatGPT?
We have workflows that can be built to decide what messages should be triggered for which query.